KODACHROME( NATIONALGEOGRAPHICSOCIETY
that save swimmers in trouble.
We had a great run on the river, Alby and
Melbourne and I. There were no passengers,
so Alby let.me take the wheel. I had spoken
jauntily of my own 36-foot sailboat, but the
big old paddle-wheeler, pushed along at five
knots by her original steam piston engine,
answered the helm as obstinately as a hard
mouthed horse.
"You're too used to that ketch," said Alby
severely. "Here, stand to one side, grab a
spoke of the wheel, and lean on it with all
your weight. Like this."
And Melbourne
turned to his knowing touch as sweetly and
surely as my Andromeda.
A foray into southwestern Victoria along
the Great Ocean Road takes one into country
as different from the Murray Valley as coastal
California is from the Sacramento Valley.
The road runs from near Geelong to Portland,
and you are never long from the sight, sound,
and smell of the sea. Around every turn, it
seems, one finds a new headland, a new
gleaming beach, and always the vast blue
expanse of what Australians call the Southern
Ocean. It is a drive to be taken slowly and
savored. Stop and watch the surfers atop the
foaming combers. Stroll the soft sands. Linger
in the little towns with the salty names:
Barwon Heads, Aireys Inlet, Apollo Bay, Port
Campbell, Port Fairy.
I lingered longest on a desolate stretch of
road near the Twelve Apostles, towering rock
pinnacles that the relentless waves cut away
from sheer cliffs (pages 248-9). Near them,
high atop a lonely headland, I found a tiny
graveyard containing seven victims of the
wreck of the Loch Ard, a vessel that went
down on June 1, 1878. The bodies were
buried near where they washed ashore.
Hometown of Eight Million Sheep
Portland, western terminus of the Great
Ocean Road, is the only port of refuge for
ships for many miles along that magnificent
but severe coast. It also claims the distinction,
before Melbourne, of being Victoria's oldest
permanent settlement (page 253). Edward
Henty led his family and crew ashore there in
November of 1834, and unlike an earlier land
ing party, that of William Dutton in 1828,
Henty's remained. With impartiality, or per
haps frugality, Portland erected a single
waterfront monument honoring both events.
They say of Hamilton, northeast of Port
land, that 8,000,000 sheep reside within a
70-mile radius of the town, and this is pur
ported to be the most concentrated sheep pop
ulation in the world. I believe it. Everywhere
I looked, mobs of sheep grazed dispiritedly in
pastures burned brown by summer sun.
It used to be said, "Australia travels on the
sheep's back." The nation's economy no long
er stands or sprawls on the sale of wool, but
wool remains a very important business (page
247). That fact was impressed upon me when
I visited Nigretta East, W. M. Moodie's sheep
stud near Hamilton. Mr. Moodie also owns
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